Note (d) — APPENDIX. No. VI.

I have observed that in most African languages there is less distinction in the words for four and five, than between any other of the numerals and that frequently the word for five in one language, is identical with that for four in another, geographically remote. Four may be assimilated in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 6, 14, for the two latter deviate only in the substitution of one liquid for another, which is as common in the languages of Africa as in those of America. The words for four in the above suite do not seem of a different root from those in 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 21, from which it only varies in 20 by the prefix of nabo. With the difference of a single letter, the same word for four is found in the Yngwa (13) and the Empoöngwa (31) which are 1000 miles distant. Four in Congo is m’na, in Empoöngwa, nahee. Sanu, the Kaffer four, is approached in 18.